Author's note: To my shame, I only saw Sunshine recently and it stuns me how I could have missed an incredible story. Also, and despite the opinions of others—what a villain, what a character, Captain Pinbacker was. His was the type that glorified and inspired the stories they play in, and I certainly hope I can provide closure to his character arc which was unfortunately not too satisfyingly portrayed in the film.
**I am not a religious person—at least not for several years-, but I believe that the metaphysical overtones present in the film provided a unique avenue wherein I had to tap into old verses to show the darker side of zealotry. I had always wanted to make a story that would portray religious horror and this seemed to be a very good opportunity to do so
The Last Judgment
Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD, thy God in vain. – Exodus 20:7
Within that shaking, doomed claustrophobic metal prison, his eyes beheld stars.
Twinkling they were; countless, innumerable points of light seemingly multiplying further and further into an endless beyond...
He knew exactly what was happening and was stunned for a most infinitesimal moment.
It would have been a most beautiful sight for most…
But to him…
My God, my God…why hast thou forsaken me?
He felt his knees give up from beneath him. His strength; that from the one true God he had worshipped—nay, had become one with for seven long years—had become as dust.
In the face of this, we are dust, nothing more!
How right he was he thought at the time—speaking to the heretics who had attempted to thwart divine providence.
He had been sent by his fellow man to save a dying star but it was not and never had been so simple. Man was his own destroyer for the centuries that had come after humanity had once communed with God.
Cast ye the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Thus as before, the LORD had to intervene as a shepherd would his flock.
How terrible and how sweet to be a man thus chosen by God. Such a small thing, the mind. How it pales and bows to the splendor of the divine.
The chosen one had seen the LORD himself long ago. In that moment, he had wondered, was that how Moses had felt upon beholding the burning bush?
How irrelevant that question was when it was not a question at all.
He understood.
And I saw a great white throne…and the One sitting on it. The earth and sky fled from His presence, but they found no place to hide.
How lovely indeed was His dwelling place!
This is My body, which will be given up for You.
He had thought of his pain then as nothing—he could not even remember the hurt. Only ecstasy, when he, the LORD's Son had opened the deck doors and allowed the golden love of the one true God to consume his insignificant flesh and that of the blessed few chosen to bear witness the beginning of deliverance.
What sweet, sweet bliss…
To be reborn in that golden forge…
To have been literally been remade in His image.
The Icarus I and its successor were never ships nor were they foolish as was their namesake in the heathen myths of old.
They have and always had been vessels.
Chalices.
Take this cup and drink of it. This is My blood, which will be given up for You.
Give them up, the prophet would. Yea, with all his heart and without the least hesitation as Abraham had once did with Isaac.
Our Father, who art in heaven…
Thus, the chosen man had brought deliverance to his crew—some had willingly given themselves into his hands and thus unto the LORD's.
Hallowed be thy name…
Those who had not believed, he had made believe.
Thy kingdom come…
Oh, what sweet suffering it was to be a chosen, virtuous man.
Oh, what sublime glory to be God's prophet.
Thy will be done…
Such was his burden, one that He would have given only to the strongest. In time, the virtuous man had come to realize…that he had, and had always been, His only begotten Son.
And he realized then…that there was still work left to do.
On Earth…as it is in heaven…
Thus, the LORD spoke to His faithful.
How simple and yet profound was God's message.
Amen, I say unto you. Today, you shall be with Me…in Paradise.
And so he, the Son, had communed with the LORD for seven long years, opening himself up to the promise of Paradise. The promise of the world to come. All the deeds needed had been done.
The chalice had been poured. The bread had been broken. It was all but a matter of time.
Yet even time had lost meaning to the Son.
It was rapture, and soon all of humanity would once and for all return to God's eternal embrace.
What glorious purpose thus given. What profound burden it had been.
And so it had become a vigil, his own version of what had happened in the Garden of Gethsemane in ages long past—or so he thought.
On hearing the long silent and insignificant doors of his chalice somehow open, he knew that this must be another trial sent forth by the one above.
The work was not yet done.
He, the Messiah returned, had one last evil to overcome in order to bring everlasting life.
It had been simple enough to sneak onto the other vessel. He understood that this new chalice was but another offering.
Those misguided souls who had commandeered it—he will save them as well whether they would want to or not.
Such is the nature of selfless love.
Do we not hurt the ones we love, after all?
Are you an angel? He had inquired the one who had gazed upon his munificence while basking in the golden love of God in the observation deck Has the time come?
Oh he had hoped he was right—but alas, it was just a man, as he had feared.
Another holocaust was in order, and it had been easy enough up until that point.
Oh how close…how close.
"For seven years…I have spoken with God!" he had proclaimed.
He had the last sinner within his grasp; his own Judas! This time however, no longer shall the Messiah receive the traitor's kiss.
"He told me to take us all back to heaven!"
He wanted—nay, hoped to see enlightenment in this last poor soul's eyes. How could this one not see His promise?
Surely the LORD would not let this pass.
And then there was pain—and he felt the skin kissed by the LORD rent from his being by that traitor, this monstrous sinner!
How?—
Lo, flesh split from flesh—and the Messiah had become man once more—every bit as vulnerable as his would be betrayer, his holy blood bursting from the ruins of what that had once been the anointed hands that would bring forth deliverance.
How?—
Then as if providence would have it—the gravity shear, God's will perhaps had caused the entire ultrastructure of the stellar bomb— last bastion of darkness to turn about and gone went the traitor.
And then he thought finally—thy will be done!
But it was not to be…the stars before his very eyes only meant one thing.
My God, my God…why hast thou forsaken me?
On his knees, the forlorn prophet trembled in horror from within his dying prison.
The multitude of scintillating lights became as hideous to him as the fires of hell were to the damned.
How?—was he not the Son? The anointed prophet? The Savior of all mankind?
The sound of metal screeching apart and the infernal noise of the vacuum of space and solar wind—things no man was meant to hear—brought forth fear, unbridled and primal, for the first time in those seven long years.
The last moments seemed to stretch to infinity—the blinding lights coalesced into an all-consuming whiteness and the indescribable agony that followed seemed to last eternal.
Broken and pathetic, the scantlings of his self begged for supplication.
My eyes fail from weeping…I am in torment within!
The light was no longer that of God's but those of the adversary—the smiles, the laughter and blazing eyes of demons conjured straight from pits darker than the deepest depths of space.
As if in reply, he heard words in a voice that would make galaxies tremble—
Thine will pay the penalty of eternal destruction—away from the presence of thine LORD!
He would have wept in his failure but the failed Messiah no longer knew if he even still had eyes.
At last, the horrific kaleidoscope seemed to abate—and finally He who he had worshipped manifested for the Second Coming in one final golden blaze to smite his unworthy being into the lake of fire.
YOURS IS A VENGEFUL GOD!
Woe is he, and it was all the false saviour could do but scream.